“I did never think to marry.” “What fire is in mine ears? Can this be true?”
 
MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING.
 
 
 
SIR RALPH did not go to Mrs. Archer’s the next day. Nor for several days after that. How he got through them he could not have told; though probably none of those about him saw in him any change, or traces of disturbance of any kind. He heard Florence, speaking to his mother, mention that Captain Berwick had returned, and he fancied there was a hidden meaning in her tone as she said it. But yet it did not somehow interest him. It seemed already a long time ago since that afternoon on the terrace; and he was so utterly absorbed and engrossed by his own feelings just at this time that outward things did not readily come home to him. He felt as if it were already all over. The same moment which revealed the depth of his love for Marion had burnt into him the conviction that she was lost to him. He knew that his staying away for three days, from the house which had of late become an almost daily resort to him, could not but be observed and commented upon; but he did not care. Just now he was suffering too newly and acutely, to be very sensitive to lesser annoyances, and it seemed a matter of small consequence that his behaviour should appear inconsistent or eccentric.
 
As it happened however, his conduct was not discussed or in any way commented upon by Mrs. Archer and her young friend. Cissy had been ill for two or three days; so ill as to be unable to leave her room, and though all Marion’s time, out of school hours, had been spent in nursing her, they had neither of them felt inclined for much conversation.
 
Ralph heard of the poor little woman’s illness quite accidentally.
 
At luncheon on the third day since his memorable visit, Sybil asked if she might go round by the market in her walk, to buy some fresh flowers.
 
“It’s too late for fresh flowers to-day,” said Miss Vyse.
 
And “What do you want them for?” asked Lady Severn.
 
“For the little boy’s mamma, Grandmamma,” answered Sybil, “she has been ill for two days, and Miss Freer said she was going to get up this afternoon, and she wanted to get some flowers to make the drawing-room pretty, but she hadn’t time to go round by the market.”
 
“And so she left orders with you to do so!” said Lady Severn, sarcastically, “Really, I must say Miss Freer’s ideas of what is fitting and becoming are peculiar, to say the least. To think of my granddaughters being sent all over the town to execute her commissions!”
 
“Oh, Grandmamma,” exclaimed Sybil, on the point of bursting into tears, “it wasn’t that way at all.”
 
“No, indeed,” added Lofty, coming to the rescue; “it was Sybil herself thought of it, and I said I would ask, but she said she would, because when we looked at our money, I had only my gold Napoleon and no little money. And she had two half-francs. So we fixed she should be the one to buy them.”
 
“You are very rude to interrupt in that way, Charlotte,” said her grandmother severely, “both you and Sybil are by no means changed for the better lately in your manners.” At which Lotty looked resentful, but far from penitent.
 
“If you both get up early to-morrow I’ll take you to the market myself before breakfast,” said Ralph, “then the flowers are sure to be fresh.”
 
This proposal was received with delight by both children, who scampered off to consult the equally amiable sister of Thérèse as to the best means of ensuring their waking by sunrise.
 
Then Ralph roused himself and set out for a solitary walk. He went first in the direction of Mrs. Archer’s house, intending to enquire at the door if she were better, without going in. But as he entered the street in which it was situated, he met Charlie and Thérèse, from whom he obtained the information that Madame was much better, so much better that Mademoiselle was going to let her get up this afternoon.
 
Sir Ralph expressed his gratification at the good news.
 
“Be sure you tell your mamma, Charlie,” said he, “that I was coming to ask for her, when I met you. And give her my very kind regards, and say I hope she will soon be quite well.”
 
“I’ll remember,” said Charlie, “werry kind regards, and hopes she’ll soon be well. And what am I so say to Madymuzelle, that’s May, you know? What am I to say to her? Best love, that’s prettier than kind regards. I always send my best love.”
 
“Do you?” said Ralph, “but you see you’re a little chap. Best love isn’t half so pretty when people are big.”
 
“Isn’t it?” said the child dubiously. But Ralph patted his cheek, and walked on.
 
As he drew near Mrs. Archer’s house he saw a gentleman come out of it, and walk on in front of him. It was Captain Berwick. He had only been leaving some books at the door, which his sister had sent to amuse the invalid, but this, of course, Ralph could not know; and, though he thought he had suffered in these two days all that was possible to endure, he found that the sight of his successful rival’s quitting the house after enjoying, in all probability, a tête-à-tête with Marion, added a fresh pang to all he had already undergone.
 
Frank had not seen him, and he might easily have escaped his notice, but a strange impulse urged him forward. He walked rapidly, and overtook him just as he reached the corner of the street. The young man looked surprised, but responded cordially enough to his greeting.
 
“So you’re back again at Altes,” said Ralph, for want of anything better to say.
 
Frank did not deny the fact.
 
“Yes,” he replied; “the day before yesterday I turned up again. You’ve been away too, I hear?”
 
“Oh dear, yes; for ever so long. I left before you did. Indeed, I did not know till my return that you had not been here all the time.”
 
“We seem wonderfully interested in each other’s movements,” observed Frank, as they walked on, with rather an awkward laugh. He evidently, for some reason or other, did not feel particularly comfortable in his present society.
 
Ralph did not reply, and for a minute or two there was silence. Suddenly the same uncontrollable impulse again seized him, and he did not resist it.
 
“It’s absurd,” he thought, “going on in this way. It will be a ghastly satisfaction to hear it confirmed by his own lips.”
 
He turned to Frank.
 
“Excuse me, Berwick, if I am premature—I have certainly not yet heard it formally announced—but—I am right, am I not, in congratulating you?”
 
Frank looked confused and exceedingly surprised. A cloud of not small annoyance began to creep up over his handsome face.
 
“You must excuse me, Severn, but I haven’t the remotest idea what you are talking about. ‘Congratulate me.’ On what, pray?”
 
It was intensely disagreeable for Ralph. The last man on earth to pry into, or gossip about his neighbours’ affairs; who, indeed, carried to such an extreme his sensitive horror of intrusion, his shy avoidance of all matters of personal interest, that, in a general way, his nearest friend might have lost a fortune or gained a wife without his appearing to have heard of the event. He would have given worlds to have made some half apology, to have shuffled out of it with some muttered words of “must have been a mistake,” or “only a piece of the usual Altes gossip, which Captain Berwick must excuse.”
 
But he was determined to have done with it and drove himself on remorselessly.
 
“On your marriage,” he said quietly, “or, rather, I should say on your engagement to be married.”
 
“To whom?” asked Frank, in a constrained voice.
 
“To Miss Freer,” replied Ralph.
 
“And who told you?” asked Frank again.
 
“No one in particular,” answered Ralph, beginning to chafe under all this cross-questioning; “I heard it in several quarters, and you may be sure I felt no doubt of the truth of the report, or I certainly would not have motioned any young lady’s name, as I have just now done.”
 
He spoke stiffly. He could not understand Frank’s behaviour. But his bewilderment changed to utter astonishment, when suddenly Captain Berwick turned round upon him.
 
“ ‘No one in particular;’ you say Sir Ralph Severn, told you this piece of News. Then perhaps you will be so good as till this friend of yours ‘no one in particular,’ that he or she will do better in future to refrain in the first place from believing, and in the second place from circulating, such idle and mischievous tales, for which there is no foundation whatever in fact. As to whether this piece of advice may not with peculiar propriety be extended to yourself, I leave you to judge.”
 
So saying he bowed stiffly, his face flushed with excitement and indignation, and turning sharply in an opposite direction, left Ralph to pursue his walk alone.
 
The whole interview had passed so rapidly that Ralph felt thoroughly confused. Frank had left him no time to reply to his extraordinary outburst, and indeed, had he done so, Ralph would hardly have known what to say. He did not feel angry, and would have been ready enough to apologise for however unintentionally, hurt or annoyed his hot-blooded companion: though really it was difficult to see in what way he had done so! As he walked on slowly his thoughts began gradually to emerge from their bewilderment, and to take the only form by which it appeared to him that the riddle could be explained.
 
Frank was ashamed of himself! He had gone too far with Miss Freer, and at the last had dishonourably withdrawn. No wonder the mention of this report put him in a passion. No wonder indeed. Ralph ground his teeth, as for one passing moment he wished he were Marion’s brother. This explained it all. Her altered looks, her variable spirits, her painful agitation at the mention if Captain Berwick’s return. Poor little governess! This then was the price she had to pay for her womanly self-denial and honest independence of spirit. (For Ralph had gathered from Cissy’s remarks that during her stay at Altes there had been no positive necessity for Marion’s exertions, but that she had “too great a notion of independence.”) It must have been that mother and sisters of his! Looking down upon her because she was a daily governess. Looking down on her.
 
“Oh,” thought Ralph to himself, “if only I could set ever thing at defiance and brave the future, even now I feel as if I should like to snatch her away from all those horrid people and devote my life to making her happy. But,” and with the ‘but’ his mood changed, “she doesn’t care for me. Oh, Frank Berwick, what a weak, contemptible fool you are! For he did care for her—I am sure of that.”
 
But hardly had his reflections reached this point when they were interrupted. Hasty steps behind him which his absorption had prevented his hearing as they drew nearer, and in another moment there stood Frank Berwick beside him. His face still flushed, but more now from eagerness than annoyance, and with a look of resolution about it too.
 
“Severn,” he began abruptly, “I behaved like a fool just now; but I was most intensely annoyed, as you will understand when you hear what I have got to say. I want to tell you something. It’s rather a queer thing to do, I know, but it seems to me we have all been playing at cross purposes, and I shall feel better satisfied if I tell you. There is not another man living, I don’t think, that I would trust, as I am going to let you see I trust you.”
 
He stopped, rather awkwardly, for Ralph had not by glance or gesture encouraged him to proceed. Now, however, he could hardly avoid saying something.
 
“If I can be of use to you, Captain Berwick,” he said, coldly, “I shall be glad to do what I can. But, remember a stranger can seldom do much good by meddling among relations, if that, as I suspect, is what you want of me.”
 
Frank smiled.
 
“I see what you’re driving at,” he said, “and that confirms me in resolving to set you right; for my own sake, if for no other. You think, Severn, I see plainly, that my very evident admiration—to use no stronger word—for the young lady you mentioned a short time ago, would—nay, should— have resulted in what you rather rashly congratulated me upon just now, had it not been for some backwardness on my part. Fear of my people’s opposition, or some such obstacle. You are quite mistaken. I am in no way dependent on my parents. I have a good appointment in India and need consult no one as to whom I marry. Nor, indeed, would my people have opposed me in this. Of that I am quite sure. Did it never strike you, Severn, that there might be another way of accounting for the present state of affairs, which you evidently don’t think satisfactory? You have been blaming me; suppose you find I am more to be pitied than blamed. It’s not a pleasant thing to tell, Severn, but this is the actual state of the case. I did offer myself and all that I had in the world to Miss Freer, most distinctly and unmistakeably. It certainly was not much to offer, but such as it was it was most honestly laid before her, to take or leave. And she chose the latter.”
 
“The latter?” repeated Ralph, as if he hardly understood what Frank was saying.
 
“Yes, the latter. In plain English, Severn, she wouldn’t have me. Refused me out-and-out. Decidedly, unmistakeably, but all the same, she did it in such a way that, though rejecting me as a lover, she kept me as a friend. And that’s a feat few women can perform. Her friend, indeed. She has none truer.”
 
“It does honour not only to her, Berwick,” said Ralph, warmly, “but still more to you. But when did all this happen?” he asked eagerly, adding in the same breath, “forgive me. I have no right to ask such questions.”
 
“You are perfectly welcome to the whole story,” said Frank, too much in earnest to stand on much ceremony; “in fact, that you should hear the whole story was my object in telling you any. When did it happen? Oh, ages ago! I thought I had begun to get over it a little, till you touched the tender place just now. It was on the night of the second ball. You remember? The day before you went away.”
 
Did he not remember?
 
“But now comes the part of the whole I most want to tell you,” went on Frank; “and yet the hardest to, even hint, to you. I fervently hope I am not doing wrong, but I am sure I can trust you, Severn. Just now when I lost my temper, it was not merely mortification and all that sort of thing; it was indignation against you.”
 
“But what on earth for?”asked Ralph in amazement.
 
“Don’t you see? But of course you don’t. If you did, you wouldn’t require me to tell you. I was furious at you, very much in the same way that you were furious at me. I declare, Severn,” he broke out, half smiling, but impatiently, seeing that the look of bewilderment did not in the least clear from Ralph’s face. “I declare you are very dense. I know you’re very learned and clever, but I must say you are uncommonly stupid too. Don’t you see?” he repeated. “You were indignant with me, thinking I had been trifling with the best and sweetest girl in the world. Well, I was angry because I thought the very same thing of you.”
 
The light began to break on Ralph, but very faintly as yet.
 
“I understand you to some extent,” he said; “but surely I, so much older and graver than you—surely Altes gossip might leave me alone.”
 
“That it won’t,” said Frank;” but it isn’t Altes gossip I am talking about. To speak plainly, Severn, for you drive me to it. When Severn she, you know who, refused me, it did not require much penetration to discover she had the best of reasons. She is no coquette, and she is very young. Only one thing had blinded her to my feelings towards her, otherwise she would never have found it in her gentle heart to let them go so far unchecked. And this thing was her own devotion to another. Don’t you see it now, Severn? No wonder I blamed you. You, the luckiest man on earth! For I knew she was not the sort of girl to have given her affection unsought. And that night, when you came to tell her you were leaving Altes, in that sudden, cruel way, I could have done I don’t know what to you, Severn. Till to-day, I never doubted you knew it. You see you went there pretty often, and that, for you, said a good deal. Altogether, no one but yourself could have made me believe you were so blind. If I have been mistaken, Severn, in believing that you cared for her, for heaven’s sake do not misuse what I have confided to you, by amusing yourself at her expense. Though, after all, I cannot quite believe I have been mistaken he added anxiously.
 
“You deserve my secret, Berwick,” said Ralph, in a voice that was husky in spite of his efforts. “You are a good fellow, and I see your motive. You shall have my secret. You were not mistaken. There now, remember that, however strange my after conduct may seem to you. I shall, whatever I may be forced to do, think more of her happiness than of my own. Goodbye, for the present and thank you,” he said, earnestly, as they shook hands hastily, and separated.
 
Frank sailed for India three days after.
 
Before he went, however, he took pity on the ill-requited devotion of Dora Bailey; pro-posed to her, and was of course, accepted. Poor Frank! He was not altogether of the stuff of which heroes of romance are made, though one deed of his life had, at least according to the world’s standard in such matters, somewhat savoured of the heroic. He made one stipulation, however, with the enraptured Dora: she was to tell no one of the engagement for two months to come; at the end of which time he promised to write to her father, whose consent he did not anticipate much difficulty in obtaining, and to make arrangements for her joining him in India, under suitable escort. It was rather hard upon Dora, but she was too much in awe of him, and too grateful for his immense condescension to dream of opposing him, though she thought to herself, “How very nice it would have been to announce my engagement before every one leaves Altes for the summer. Particularly to that Miss Freer, who has done her best to lure him away from me.”
 
She would have had no objection to being married on the spot and setting off with him then and there, which, considering it would have involved the going without a trousseau and all its delightful attendants, proves that she was very deeply in love!
 
“She’s not a bad little thing in her way,” said Frank to himself, “though rather too much of a goose. And certainly a long way better than anything I could have picked up in India. So, on the whole, it’s the best thing I can do, for I couldn’t stand much more of that horrible bachelor life out there.”
 
But as for marrying her on the spot! No, he was not quite ready for that. Other things as yet were too fresh; though after a time, and a few mouths of unsatisfactory, lonely life in India, he, being domestic in his tastes, hoped to be able to work up to a moderate amount of love for the silly, affectionate baby.
 
“She’s pretty, and any way I know she cares for me, which is always something. And I’m not likely ever to have a hotter chance, if as good.”
 
And when the time came to say goodbye, he really felt more sorry to part with her than he could have believed possible; and he whispered to her that the period of separation should not be a long one, if it was in his power to shorten it.
 
When Frank left him, Ralph still walked on. Mechanically, for he was quite unaware what direction he was following, or how far he had gone. His whole being was shaken to its centre. He could see clearly along no line of thought. All was confusion. What had he done? What should he do? Duty and inclination, prudence and generosity, warred against each other. Worse than this, one duty took up arms against another, and which to consider victorious he could not decide. All his past convictions as to what was right and wise for him, firm and sound as he had thought them, were suddenly uprooted and thrown in his face, by the new claims, not merely on his inclination, but on his honour, which Frank’s communication had revealed to him. His was one of those morbidly conscientious natures which persist in always erecting barriers between the right and the pleasant. Often, no doubt, barriers are planted there already by higher hands than ours, in which case, all we can do is to submit, and make the best of the thorny road. But Ralph and others like him could not feel content with. He could hardly believe that duty sometimes wears an attractive form; that sometimes it is meet and lawful for us to gather the roses blooming by the way, and to saunter for awhile on the suit and inviting pastures, there to refresh our weary, travel-sore feet.
 
Had he not known and felt how entirely and intensely he cared for Marion, he could, in one way, have decided more easily, he said to himself; though in so thinking he erred. For had he cared for her less, he could have offered her nothing meet for her acceptance! Of one like him, the fullest, deepest love would alone be worthy of the name at all. But the thought of winning her was so unspeakably tempting that he doubted himself:
 
“It is all abominable selfishness,” he said to himself, “I have no right to think of it. No man has less right to dream of marriage than I. In all probability I should only be dragging her into a life of struggling anxiety. Far worse to bear than her present dependence; for then she might have others to care for, and for whom she would kill herself with anxiety. She is that sort of woman, I know. If I want a wife I should choose a not over sensitive, managing young woman—from which all the same Heaven preserve me!—one w............